National Broadcast Reading Service Inc.

The National Broadcast Reading Services Inc. (NBRS) has announced a significant expansion of its national broadcast reading service for people with vision disabilities.

Voiceprint, which broadcasts a 24-hour information channel in voice format, is the largest broadcast reading service in the world. Programs include news and editorial information from hundreds of daily newspapers and magazines, which are read in their entirety by VoicePrint volunteers. The number of people who cannot access print media, currently estimated at three million, is growing as an increasingly large number of seniors no longer have the visual acuity necessary to read.

Recently, the CRTC mandated that all cable providers must carry the NBRS VoicePrint signal. The cable providers are to pay to NBRS a "passthrough fee" for supplying the signal.

The new CRTC mandate marks "essentially the first time in 10 years that we have a guaranteed source of income for this speciality broadcast undertaking," said Paul E. Thiele, Chair of NBRS.

NBRS and Avalanche Networks have also jointly announced the first e-commerce website with audio streaming targeted to people with vision disabilities. The new site will also permit NBRS to sell audio cassettes, audio books and voice-descriptive movies (see www.ShopDome.com/VoicePrint).